From the Beginning of this Project, we wanted to
Recognize the
Efforts of the Professional Avalanche Safety Community

The forecasters provide us a great service, in many cases as a
labor of love.

As one regional director told us “If you
want a job with a lot of work for very little money, this is the
place.” And the avalanche instructors provide us with the tools and
knowledge to
keep us safe. As we developed MAST, we were fortunate to receive
advice, encouragement and help from Andy Anderson at
SAC, Bruce
Tremper at UAC, Ethan Greene at
CAIC, Karl Birkeland at
NAC, Mark
Moore at NWAC, Mark Mueller at
American Avalanche
Association and Nate
Greenburg at ESAC.
Their input has been invaluable.

So, we try to give back a little by making the app available free of charge to
certified AAI and qualified AIARE-certified
instructors. If you “didn’t get the memo” by email from
AAI or AIARE, contact us with your name, instructor ID and email
address and we will send you download instructions.

Just our way of saying 'Thank You' to the people who
make it safer to pursue our passion.

Friends of Berthoud Pass – Dedicated
to preserving the legacy of public recreation on Berthoud Pass Since
2003

FOBP is committed to providing free avalanche
awareness classroom sessions to the public in order to spread
backcountry protocol, safety and basic avalanche knowledge.

Using standards set by the American
Institute for Avalanche Research and Education (AIARE) and the
American Avalanche Association (AAA), FOBP's classroom sessions are
attended by more than 1,200 people each year and since 2004 their
Grassroots Avalanche Education program has reached over 10,000
people.

This year, almost all of FOBP's Directors
are equipped with the MAST application on their smart phones.

BJ
Marraccini, FOBP's Communications Director and AIARE aspirant says,
“With the amount of skier traffic that Berthoud gets each winter,
I'm surprised that there aren't more local observations sent in to
CAIC. With the powerful MAST app, those of us that spend most of our
winter BC days on the pass now have a convenient and thorough tool
to record and share what we are seeing and experiencing with the
experts.”

Lynne
is an AAA-Certified Avalanche Instructor and long-time
resident of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. She’s taught
avalanche courses for American Avalanche Institute, Prescott
College, Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, Friends of the Utah Avalanche
Center, Silverton Avalanche School, NOLS, and Babes in the
Backcountry. She is also editor of American Avalanche Association’sThe Avalanche Review. In the summer she is a guide
for Exum Mountain Guides in the Tetons. She most enjoys helping
avalanche course students translate snow theory into making better
decisions in the backcountry.

Lynne says, “Since I carry
my smart phone already, using it as a multi-purpose tool that
amplifies efficiency, eliminates steps, and improves information
flow can only be good.” Learn More about Lynne’s work for The Avalanche Review.

Brett Kobernik, Avalanche Forecaster,
Mad Scientist, Garage Inventor

Splitboard inventor and Utah Avalanche
Center Forecaster Brett “Cowboy” Kobernik always looks for ways to
improve the backcountry experience through technology. Brett says “The iPhone is one of the most
powerful field tools that’s come along for avalanche forecasters in
recent history. I think we are just barely tapping into its
capabilities.” In
this video we see the iPhone
microscope that he built by gluing a washer to a full-back
protective cover and aligning the washer with the viewfinder of his
RF Interscience 25X macroscope.

Brett also built a
lightweight Ram Penetrometer out of an old ski pole and a shovel
handle. He’s been using it this season to record RAM data then
uploading the numerical arrays into UAC’s website, which then
produces a snow profile. Here’s a video of his
Penetrometer in action.

Jenna says “We want women to be an equal part of the backcountry
decision-making process. It’s important that they understand they have that
choice. We try to empower them with the most relevant science,
practical knowledge and tools, and help them feel confident that
they can make good decisions about their own safety when traveling
in the backcountry.”

“It’s
great to have an application like MAST that puts all the relevant
avalanche safety information in one place” said Jenna. “We can show
our students this and they quit sweating bullets that they have to
remember it all for tomorrow’s pop quiz!”

Big Props to Jenna and the Babes Squad for giving women the tools to
go into the backcountry safely and with confidence. To learn more,
click:

Jim “Sarge” Conway, Guide, Safety
Guru, Producer

Sarge
Conway is well known for bringing a strong measure of safety to
adventure sports. He is Sr. Safety Advisor and Guide for Teton
Gravity Research and Director of Operations at Valdez Heli Ski
Guides. He is also a leader in risk management for risk takers,
providing seminars for groups like the Navy Top Gun School, US
Marine Corps, US Air Force F35 development team, and the Coast
Guard. Sarge is an early adopter of MAST, and his observations
regularly appear on the Utah Avalanche Center’s web site.
Here is a video of Jim discussing
effective airbag use with the TGR Pro Team.

“MAST makes it easy to record data, especially
position, slope angle and aspect, in SWAG-compatible nomenclature”,
he says. “This will create a new breakthrough in social media.
Imagine checking snow and weather conditions from other users while
you are in your assessment phase in the field!” To learn more about
Sarge’s work, visit:

Reggie Crist, Haines AK Guide and
Consultant

Professional
Skier, former Olympic downhiller, two-time SkierX Gold Medalist,
Heli-Guide, Gear Consultant and MAST user Reggie Crist has provided
us with some great ideas from his real-world guiding experience.
Reggie is also a consultant for the First Ascents/Eddie Bauer line.
Reggie has several first descents in Greenland, the Himalayas, the
New Zealand Alps and Southeast Alaska. Here is a video of
Reggie’s latest first descent, of
Bellringer near Haines AK.

Reggie says “Recording weather, terrain and snowpack data on smart
phones using Ullr Labs software is an excellent way to share
information with other professionals. MAST lets us all enter the
back country with as much pertinent information as possible.”

We
were pleased when about 25% of all AAI and AIARE instructors
responded to our offer in late 2011 of free MAST licenses for those
with iPhones. When some hadn’t completed the process after a month,
we followed up to see if something went wrong at our end.

This was by far the best response:

Hi Bob-
No no, it’s simpler - and more complex - than that. I'm
in Antarctica, at McMurdo Station, getting ready to
spend 30 days in the deep field guiding a glacial
geology team. If you need me to download it sooner
rather than later I can, but I was waiting until I got
back to the states around the 1st of February.

Chris Simmons
IFMGA Mountain Guide

Here are excerpts from Chris during this latest expedition in
Antarctica’s Pensacola Mountains:

"My focus is, as the Antarctic Field Mountaineer and resident
Mountain Guide, to get all of you wherever you want to go. Safely.
Safely being the route that is least likely to get you hurt getting
there. For me, the most significant way to accomplish this is good
route-finding. Around the crevasses on the glaciers, across the
rocky ridges, and between our camps as we traverse. And I want this
to be timely - I don't want you guys losing days while I try to
figure out the best way to get from point A to point B.

The remoteness - with such a small team - is part of the appeal as
well. Six people, 340 miles away from the nearest population (the
South Pole itself). Living out of a few tents and migrating from
work-site to work-site. We get to be feral Antarcticans - perhaps
the closest thing to being a 'local' possible here. Intimately
working and living with the land. How cool is that?"

Andy
was our most peripatetic user during the 2011-2012 season. A
patroller at Alpental and Cascade Backcountry, forecaster for King
County (WA) Search and Rescue, and an avalanche instructor, Andy was
transmitting observations from all corners of Western North America
as well as providing us great a great testing base and feedback on
features.

A retired business
consultant, Andy spends about 100 days/season on snow, with about
half of those in the backcountry. When touring, he’s always
assessing snowpack conditions and sharing observations with the
Pacific Northwest community.

“MAST relies on a solid foundation of snow science
terminology/techniques and encourages uniformity of observations
across its users” Andy explains. “I've made MAST my go-to data
collector for snow observations. The more observations we can put
into the database, the better we'll all be at improving our travel
decisions in avalanche terrain.”